Bobcat Comedy Night welcomes five alumni to perform their stand-up comedy

GREENSBURG, PA – Five alumni of the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg will return to campus on Friday, Oct. 2, for the Bobcat Comedy Night—a new event that is part of the 2026 Blue & Gold Celebration.
 
Roy Gloeckl ’10, Megha Pai ’13, Jesse Palatucci ’13, Vincent Palattuci ’13, and Meghan Tutolo ’07 will perform their brands of stand-up comedy. The show opens at 8:30 p.m. in the Mary Lou Campana Lecture Center. To help us better plan, advance registration is required for this event, and attendees must be 18-years old or older to attend.
 
The Bobcat Comedy Show caps a full evening of activity, including Dinner with Live Music featuring alumnus Dave Stout ’08, who will perform country music in the Wagner Dining Hall (4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.) and the Art Show @ Pitt-Greensburg’s Artists Reception in Millstein Library (6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.). All three events are open to the public. Standard dining hall prices apply to the Dinner with Live Music attendance. Registration is requested of the Artists Reception and the Bobcat Comedy Night to help us better plan for our guests.
 
About the comics:
 
Megha Pai (Pittsburgh, PA): Megha Pai graduated from Pitt-Greensburg in 2013 with a BA in political science, a BA in English writing, and a minor in philosophy. Not only have these three disciplines come together to fuel her career in corporate communications at Highmark Health, but they have also contributed to her interest in comedy.
 
“My creative writing classes at Pitt-Greensburg, along with my performances in their Writers Festival and the Chorale, helped contribute to my interest in writing and performing after graduation,” she explained. “Although I wrote on my own sometimes, I missed the creative writing classes (in poetry, memoir, and fiction) that I’d taken at Pitt-Greensburg,” said Megha. “This led me to a stand-up class at Arcade Comedy Theater in 2022. But in the class, we not only wrote material—we also performed it for a sold-out audience at our stand-up class show.”
 
Megha performed regularly for over a year before being selected for a hosting residency at Arcade Comedy Theater. “I hosted and produced their Stand-Up Lab and Level Up Stand-Up shows for six months in 2024. These days, I still perform stand-up—along with improv, clown, and sketch comedy.” Her other credits include performing stand-up and poetry in the 2025 Millvale Music Festival. She noted that the most unique place where she’s done stand-up was in front of current and former work colleagues at the 2026 PRSA Pittsburgh Renaissance Awards. 
 
“My experience in comedy also led me back into acting,” she added. “I was cast in ‘Closing Time at the Moonside Cafe,’ an immersive production by Vigilance Theater Group.”
  
Jesse Palatucci (Pittsburgh, PA): “Even at a young age, I found joy in making people laugh and developed a love for stand-up comedy and storytelling,” said Jesse Palatucci, a 2013 Pitt-Greensburg graduate, who lives in Pittsburgh. “During my time at Pitt-Greensburg, I discovered a passion for performing through several comedic plays, which helped spark my interest in pursuing comedy more seriously.”
 
While a student, Jesse performed in three main-stage productions and two musicals, experiences he credits with helping to spark a lasting passion for acting and the performing arts.
 
As a capstone project at Pitt-Greensburg, Jesse wrote and performed a one-person show incorporating comedic storytelling and performance. Following graduation, Jesse moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting and comedy, where he began performing material from his capstone at comedy clubs throughout the city. He noted, “My love of storytelling, performance, and making people laugh continues to shape my creative work.” Jesse often accompanies his act with music and topics usually spawn from his life experiences, and off-the-wall shower thoughts.
 
His acting credits include campaigns for Doritos and Credit Karma, as well as television and film projects.
  
Vincent “Vinny” Palatucci (Pleasant Hills, PA): Vinny Palatucci attended Pitt-Greensburg from 2008 to 2013—and then he dropped out. Add two years of community college and a year at Robert Morris University prior to 2008, and he could have easily completed two degrees.
“When you go THAT long . . . you gotta cut your losses and become a clown,” he laughed.
 
The Brentwood, PA, native who now lives in Pleasant Hills, PA, used that time to turn an internship into a full-time career, saying, “I push buttons on a computer for eight hours a day for work so that I can push buttons on my computer for eight hours for games.”
 
When asked if Pitt-Greensburg played a part in developing his interest in stand-up comedy, he explained, “This is going to sound made up, but Pitt-Greensburg was actually where the idea was born. I was a fan of stand-up as far back to when I had access to Comedy Central, but it wasn't until I met my quad-mate in The Courts Building B. He was a guy with a book full of jokes he wrote, but unfortunately, he had self-respect. Luckily, I did not. It took a number of years of us writing together and shooting sketches that he finally convinced me to show some effort and hit my first open mic in 2018.”
 
Meghan Tutolo (Forest Hills, PA): Meghan Tutolo graduated in 2007 with an English writing major. “I've been a fan of comedy since I was young, though I never dreamt I would be up there myself. It's scary!,” she shared. “Scarier than most anything I've ever done—reading my own poetry, defending my thesis, even teaching at Pitt-Greensburg—believe it or not.” 
 
About three years ago, Tutolo and a friend decided to take a standup class together. “I don't know what made us jump on it. Perhaps it was that we were feeling bold and unstoppable after surviving a pandemic and too much time indoors? Funny enough, Roy (Gloeckl) was in that class. We started at the same time! That's actually how we met,” said Meghan.
 
Meghan describes herself as a lover of words and expression, adding that comedy wasn’t such a stretch. “All I know is that it is saving my life lately, as corny as that sounds,” she explained. “The world feels dark and heavy. I am so grateful for the ability to find the humor and share it with others right now.”
 
Up until COVID in 2020, Meghan taught at Pitt-Greensburg as an adjunct instructor of English Composition (I and II). She’s also worked as a copywriter for an Italian foods company for many years. “The thing I'm probably most known for is my art,” she noted. “I'm the artist behind 1flychicken creations, an art business that vends at many of the markets in Pittsburgh, including Handmade Arcade, Squirrel Hill Night Market, and I Made It! Markets. I create a lot of things including stained glass, stickers, magnets, greeting cards, etc.”
 
Everything she’s done has contributed to comedy, but especially her time at Pitt-Greensburg.  She explained, “I, of course, honed my communication and writing skills during my time here. One of my most memorable courses for this reason was Memoir—a class I took with Lori Jakiela, a master at juggling humor and meaning in her own work,” she said.
 
Still, the Pitt-Greensburg experience that has contributed the most (to her exploration of stand-up comedy) is her time here as an adjunct instructor—“Namely trying to engage an audience and the humbling art of bombing in front of a bunch of younger people who are much cooler than I am.”